How NOT to Make Ratatouille

It’s been a minute… I’ve been busy lately and haven’t been spending as much time online (yay me!), as well as feeling not so in the mood to write as much. But here I am with another recipe (kind of?) post!

I recently made ratatouille and it was aggressively not good. Anyone else remember that Kelly Clarkson song “Beautiful Disaster”? Because insert that here. This dish was so beautiful, yet such a disaster that I felt bad I even had Michael taste it. He was nice enough to pretend it wasn’t the worst thing he’s ever tasted, but we both knew it was.

*insert sad tiny finger violin music here *

If you’ve seen my previous recipes, you may remember that I am not someone that enjoys cooking or is good at it, so this was quite the task for me. It looked like a fun recipe and I thought hey, how can I possibly screw up a simple looking veggie dish?

Okay, so the first mistake I made was buying the ingredients it said to buy (which, like, what?!) – there was WAY too much to fit inside the 12×12 cast iron pan it said to cook it all in. I think if I used one less squash, one less zucchini, a smaller eggplant, half the amount of tomato, and maybe half the amount of the sauce, it would’ve fit in the cast iron pan. Maybe this was a read-ahead type of situation that could’ve been easily avoided, but either way we ended up with some extra pre-prepped veggies for the week!

Alright, now lemme set the scene for you real quick – there I was, in my poorly lit kitchen, slicing an obscene amount of vegetables as a very fussy Basil cried for my attention at my feet, while I desperately attempted to distract him with empty Tupperware containers and toys, while the dogs ran back and forth as a pathetic attempt to get a second helping of their dinner. Did it work? Mostly, no. The dogs didn’t get a second helping (they accidentally do most nights though, oops!), but Basil was distracted for approximately 25 minutes in total. Isn’t it strange that baby toys don’t seem to entertain babies, yet random household objects do? Anyway, I think it took me roughly an hour and a half just to prep the veggies because of my fussy little boy. I ended up holding him in one arm while slicing the last tomato with the other hand, which as difficult as it was, I feel is honestly kind of a mom-win on my part!

So after slicing all of the veggies, I was finally able to make the sauce. Mistakes number two and three come next: the sauce tasted like nothing, and there was too much of it. Now, had I been a normal person and tasted the sauce before going through with the rest of the recipe, I most likely would’ve saved myself a lot of time and frustration – both from Basil and myself.

But did I taste the sauce? No. I. Kept. Trying. To. Cook.

Again, why do I even try to cook anymore after The Grilled Cheese Incident?

Here’s the fourth mistake: my eggplant was twice the size of the rest of the veggies. I didn’t think this would be an issue when I bought them, but it was indeed an issue when it came to layering them in the (wrong) pan. So I, of course, improvised and sliced each eggplant slice in half and layered accordingly, which was mistake number five because I couldn’t fit as much of the squash, zucchini or tomato.

So, there I was – crying baby at feet, dogs wandering around as if they hadn’t been fed in days – with a 9×13 pan full of flavorless sauce and incorrectly sliced veggies, yet I continued.

Next, I of course read the recipe wrong and thought I was supposed to pour the olive oil, basil, and parsley mixture on top before baking it, so that’s what I did. Mistake number six. I was actually supposed to pour that on each serving as it was dished up, but hey, at this point, after five mistakes is one more really that life changing?

So, it baked for an hour and a half before I *thought* it was done. Was it? Mistake number seven ladies and gentlemen. It was not done. So I served Michael and I up a plate of this catastrophe, and Michael found that, even after an hour and a half, his veggies were still hard and not cooked through, not to mention, it was slimy and tasted like nothing. How is it that I didn’t fully cook the veggies, yet they were slimy????

Isn’t it so pretty?

So it tasted like nothing, was slimy, yet crunchy, and we had so. much. left. I feel bad wasting food, but at this point, I also felt bad for anyone that would’ve eaten it, so we threw it all away. There went 4 hours of my time and hard work down the drain, yeehaw.

So basically me making ratatouille was mistake after mistake, that ended in me wishing I had a rat hiding in my hat telling me what to do so I had someone other than myself to blame for the monstrosity that was Izzy’s Homemade Ratatouille. I think the best part about this whole experience was knowing that it was someone else’s recipe and I didn’t make it up myself.

What did we learn from this? Mostly just that I really should never cook again. Will I? I’ll try extra hard not to, but I’m sure I’ll have to eventually…

Published by Izzy Tehle

I’m a twenty-two year old mama to Basil, and fiancé to my amazing man Michael.
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to stay home with our son, and have the occasional free-time during Basil’s naps, so I decided to start this blog! I’ve always loved writing and photography, so I’m hoping this will help me experiment with those hobbies and give myself a creative outlet as well!
View all posts by Izzy Tehle

Hahaha I am sorry for laughing at your beautiful disaster. It really does look as though it would taste good though!! Such a shame that it didn’t. Boyfriend says that a lot of recipes always call for so much more than regular cookware actually fits. He’ll be like “what kind of freakin’ pots & pans do these people have?!” because the recipes always seem to lie like the one you followed did!